Race

Will owning a passport make you less racist?
Lisa Francesca Nand, journalist and travel podcaster shares her experiences traveling the world as a bi-racial women, and how that impacts her worldview, and her career. Lisa is one of the top sports reporters and travel podcasters in the UK, and in this conversation on race, talks about the impact her work has had on reducing bias.

In this fascinating conversation on race, John Blake, the CNN reporter who covers race, religion and politics shares his experiences and thoughts on race. You definitely want to hear this episode of ”Every Day Conversations on Race.”

Race has always been an important issue to John Blake. He shares his experience as a biracial young man growing up in West Baltimore where the Freddy Gray riots occurred, and where The Wire was filmed.

Regarding Governor Northam of Virginia, and the issue of Blackface, John refers to Lyndon Johnson and Abraham Lincoln who had racist histories, but later did great things for Black people., “Some of our best friends have been racist,” he wrote in a recent article.

“Thinking about Lincoln and Johnson,” he states “made me ask whether we want someone who works for Black people who has made mistakes that we can talk to, or someone who is able to successfully hide their racism and do nothing.”

He said that social media will destroy people over one wrong statement and there’s no redemption. “We fixate on other people but not how we all have issues of race. Even I do,” he admits.

We talk about the myth that if there all you need to get rid of racism, is more intermarriage and biracial children.

Listen now if you want to know

why you can still be racist even if you have people of color in your family or a Black best friend

what’s whitesplaining and how some white people try to tell Black people what racism

why John Blake was accused of mansplaining by his wife

how reporting on gang activity in Los Angeles affected his thinking on race and systems

what he thinks of Rachel Dolezal

why we need new ways and language of talking about racism

actions we can take to look at ourselves, further the conversation on race, and stop racism

April Baskin, a Jewish woman of color joined me for an Every Day Conversation on Race to share her perspectives on Judaism, race, the women’s march and social justice.

Her African-American, Native-American and White Ashkenazie Jewish background made her the person she is today, a social activist who has been instrumental in bringing people together across differences. She has had many every day conversations on race, ethnicity, religion, and economic class.

April has a very strong Jewish identity and has held several leadership positions in mainstream Jewish organizations.. Even though she was the VP of Audacious Hospitality at the Union for Reform Judaism, she has experienced racism within the Jewish community. The false myth that all Jews are white, has sometimes led white Jews to question her Judaism, telling her she is not Jewish enough or interrogating her by asking, “How are you Jewish.” This is a question that white Jewish people are not asked, nor are they told they are not Jewish enough.

There is another false belief amongst some more right wing white Jewish people that there is a “special issue” of Black antisemitism. There is some antisemitism and racism in every group particularly when people don’t know each other. Instead of getting to know individuals in any group, some people take the “easy and lazy” way out and rely on the media, one negative experience or Facebook and Twitter rumors to generalize a group. It’s a cognitive dissonance that when someone in a group we are part of (racial, cultural, etc.) we see them as on individual but when it’s an individual from another group they represent everyone.

We also discussed her thinking that some of the claims of anti-Semitism are coming from trolls and people who don’t support equality and want to use Jewish people as scapegoats to separate us from Muslims and people of color who have also been targeted and attacked. Their strategy is to make Jewish people feel like they are being attacked by people on the progressive side and no longer align with them.

This has been particularly problematic in the recent Women’s March, of which April is on the steering committee. In our conversation on race, April spoke about the misconception that the whole leadership of the women’s march was anti Semitic based on the relationship one of the leaders has with Minister Farrakhan who had consistently made anti-Semitic statements.

April made the compared that by saying that if a Jewish person in a synagogue makes a racist statement that doesn’t mean all Jewish people are responsible, and it would be wrong to assume that and condemn all Judaism.

It’s important for April and other Jewish women to be part of the women’s march and educate people who may not know about Judaism and what is considered offensive no matter who they are. At the same time, it’s important for white women involved in the Women’s March to learn about racism. We need each other and the only way we can be successful and eliminate inequality is by education, experience and working together.

This is why April feels that open, honest and sometimes difficult conversations on race are crucial to stop hate and fear of people who are different.

Conversations on Race and LatinX with Bernardo Ferdman and Placida Gallegos

What is LatinX? Bernardo Ferdman, a Jewish Latino, born in Argentina and raised in Puerto Rico, and Placida Gallegos, a Chicana woman define LatinX, and talk about issues of race, skin color, and ethnicity in the Latin culture.

They share issues of skin color, ethnicity and race in the Latino culture. Placida talks about her family and how being light skinned was valued more than her siblings who were darker, as well as how men had more power and value than women.

Bernardo talk about his experiences as a white Latino who is also Jewish, and what binds LatinX people together.

The Spanish language is gender based, and there are different endings of words based on gender. LatinX includes all genders, ethnicities and skin colors.

Topics of interest:

LatinX- why, how and impact of the term

Questions about the term and pushback

Origin and meaning of the term Chicano

Colorism in the overall LatinX culture

Terms that used to be acceptable and is no longer

Conversations on race within the LatinX community and outside the LatinX community

Generation differences in the Latino community

History of Salsa and Caribbean music and new music blends

Intersections and complexities of Latin culture

Bad Bunny, Cardi B, and the popularity or Latino reggaeton, and trap music

Objectification of Latina women

The racial aspect of immigration issues today in the US

Patterns of racism in the immigration discussion

Impact of the media, dehumanization and villification of people from Mexico and countries who are fleeing violence and oppression

Daisy Ozim who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Lagos, Nigeria, is the founder Resilient Wellness, a co operatively owned healthcare system that provides holistic medicine and health education to marginalized and underserved communities.

She’s also the director of Blockchain for Social Justice that uses Block Chain technology to uplift marginalized communities and eliminate poverty and close the wealth gap.

Daisy says it important to talk about race because racism is one of the biggest issues that we’re facing in society as a whole. It’s also important for us to talk about race because we cannot heal or address racism and all of its manifestations if we don’t have a conversation about it.

Her organization Block Chain for social justice is a collaborative organization and that focuses in three key areas,

Block Chain developer training. Daisy helps people of color and people in lower income communities become block chain developers because they can make $250,000 to $400,000 a year

Education and access that results in creativity

Equity in the Block Chain community

Block chain technology can be used for social justice and to help low income and people of color or it can be used to further nefarious goals that hurt people of color.

She wants to ensure that people of color can generate wealth and protect themselves from economic trauma like the Black Wall Street Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Her public health work helps people physically, mentally and emotionally heal from racial trauma and internalized racism

My guests were in this episode are Paoi Eulalia and Alessandra Stevens from MXD Magazine.

MXD Magazine is a publication that celebrates LGBTQ People of Color (POCs), non-conformists, and allies. Both Paoi and Alessandra are Filipino-American but represent different genders and generations.

One of their objectives is to fight racism masked as sexual preference, among other façades. Too often LGBTQ people of color are either objectified as exotic sexual objects or are totally invisible. We discuss the different ways LGBTQ people are seen as sex objects and not as real people.

MXD Magazine aims to celebrate and bring LGBTQ people of color deal with issues that concern them.

It’s still all too common that LGBTQ people are presented in the media as all white men. Not only are people of color in general missing from the conversation but also Transgender people who are most often targets of violence and discrimination are discounted.

Within the LGB community there is still a lack of education, bias and transphobia. MXD Magazine is all-inclusive and features several people who are transgender. The magazine is still in its infant stages and most of the articles and features are male focused but by bringing in Alessandra and other women they hope to change that.

We discuss how the right therapy and therapists can make a difference in people’s lives for self-acceptance, internalized homophobia and transphobia. Both Alessandra and Paoi see the importance of increasing the amount of LGBTQ therapists who are people of color and eliminating the stigma that some people still have regarding therapy. They each share their own experiences as to how therapy has helped each of them become the healthy emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

We agree that there needs to be more attention paid to intersectionality in the LGBTQ community in order to have the conversation on race and other differences. No one is just one identity, or just LGBTQ. People are from different cultures, generations, religions, races, etc. Those multiple identities can create commonalities and connections if we are willing to look at them. No conversation on race, gender identity, or sexual orientation can be meaningful without understanding intersectionality.

LeRon Barton is a widely published author on race, mass incarceration and dating. He is 40 years old and African-American.

Key topics on the show are:

The importance of white people having conversations on race with each other.

What white people and other people can do to be allies

When people not in the target group need to speak out against racist or inappropriate comments and when they need to not speak for people of color or members of a group being targeted

Why too many white people are afraid to have a conversation about race with people different than them

Times when Black people don’t speak up because they don’t want to be seen as the angry Black person , so they water their comments down

How Obama had to walk a fine line when showing emotions

Simma and LeRon disagree about Obama as a president

Why we need more cross-race conversations about race that discuss solutions and not just talk

LeRon and Simma disagree about South Carolina. LeRon thinks there is nothing good about South Carolina and Simma says that she spoke at a diversity conference in South Carolina and met great people. Also, South Carolina has had a lot of civil rights activism and you can’t put down everyone in a whole state. Can a whole state be racist? Simma says no.

Solutions to racist monuments- should they be taken down, put in a museum or destroyed?

How to handle the dangers of being Black in America today, and in particular being a Black man. LeRon wrote an article- on “Staying Alive While Black.”

Important to talk about race because everything is racialized. She says race impacts everything in her life.

Impacts how society was set up. If someone believes another person is inferior based on color of skin, they won’t promote that person.

Economics doesn’t impact how long Black people live but it’s the result of racism.

She has been a friend with people from different races and backgrounds since she was in elementary school.

Her first experience with racism that she remembers was people not wanting to sit next to her little sister at Marine World because of how dark her sister was.

Jim Crow was not that long ago. Her great grandmother was first generation born free. Coping skills for being Black in the US were passed down and Precious has had to unlearn some of the fears for survival sake that she internalized.

She is working on just being herself instead of having to feel like she needs to take care of “white women,” so she will be accepted.

Precious started the Black Female Project to help Black females tell the truth about their experiences in the workplace. She always felt pressure to navigate and code-switch at work, which took its toll on her stress level and health.

She was hired at her last job for her talent and creativity, and then was told she wasn’t

“measuring up,” and didn’t meet “their standards.” This is very common issue for Black women who are told they speak up too much, don’t fit in, or not meeting expectations. In addition, she later found out she was paid less than a white man at the same level.

It’s also common for Black people in organizations to not get feedback about their work, or areas for improvement until they get fired. When they ask why they didn’t get feedback before, their manager told them that they didn’t want to be seen as racist.

The Black Female project celebrates Black females in the workplace and to have them share their stories. Racism in the workplace contributes to autoimmune diseases and hair loss. Sharing their stories has been healing for all the women who participated. It is in-person, online and ongoing.

It’s important for Black females to speak up about racism and inequality.

Prccious talks about the myth of the “angry Black woman,” and how Black women are stereotyped that way any time they show emotion, disagree or speak up for themselves.

Her project is continues to grow. They are also starting the Black Teacher’s Project.